Group Support Systems for Knowledge Acquisition in Humanitarian Disaster Response Teams: Embedded Research in the Belgian First Aid and Support Team

Knowledge management systems (KMS) are designed to support and enhance the process of creating, storing, retrieving and transferring knowledge. In this contribution we investigate the use of such systems for the acquisition of knowledge in humanitarian disaster response teams. First, we present a framework describing how KMS should enhance group process gains and alleviate group process losses, and create an effective learning environment for successfully supporting the acquisition of knowledge. Second, we describe ongoing research on the acquisition of knowledge in the Belgian humanitarian response team (B-FAST, for Belgian First Aid and Support Team) that uses Microsoft Groove as knowledge management system before, during and after their missions. Initial findings are presented based on participant observation and interviews of the B-FAST team during a large humanitarian exercise, along with plans for future research.